Linguolabial consonant

Linguolabials or apicolabials^[1] are consonants articulated by putting the tip of the tongue against the top-side of the lip. The lip then goes to the tongue.

Linguolabial
◌̼

Sagittal section of linguolabial stop

Linguolabial consonants are not seen very often in languages, but they are not very hard to make with your mouth, unlike click consonants or ejectives. Some languages that do have lots of linguolabial consonants are Vanuatu, Bijago, in Umotína and as paralinguistic sounds. They can be sometimes seen in disordered speech.^[2][3][4]

They can be typed as U+033C  ̼ COMBINING SEAGULL BELOW to the alveolar consonant that fits it. You can also use the apical diacritic, U+033A  ̺ COMBINING INVERTED BRIDGE BELOW to the bilabial consonant that fits it.^[5]

List of consonants

IPA (two transcriptions)		Description	Example
			Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
n̼	m̺	linguolabial nasal	Araki	m̈ana	[n̼ana]	"laugh"[6]
t̼	p̺	voiceless linguolabial plosive	Tangoa	p̈ep̈e	[t̼et̼e]	"butterfly"[7]
d̼	b̺	voiced linguolabial plosive	Kajoko dialect of Bijago		[nɔ̀-d̼ɔ́ːɡ]	"stone"[8]
n̼d̼	m̺b̺	prenasalized voiced linguolabial plosive	Vao		[nan̼d̼ak]	"bow"[7]
θ̼	ɸ̺	voiceless linguolabial fricative	Big Nambas		[ˈinɛθ̼]	"he is asthmatic"
ð̼	β̺	voiced linguolabial fricative	Tangoa	v̈atu	[ð̼atu]	"stone"[7]
l̼	—	linguolabial lateral approximant	(common in disordered speech)
ɬ̼	—	voiceless linguolabial lateral fricative	(in disordered speech)
ɮ̼	—	voiced linguolabial lateral fricative	(in disordered speech)
r̼	ʙ̺	linguolabial trill (uses lower lip)	Coatlán Zapotec		r̼ʔ	mimesis for a child's flatulence[9] (blowing a raspberry)
ǀ̼ or ʇ̼	ʘ̺	linguolabial click release (multiple consonants)	Coatlán Zapotec		kǀ̼	mimesis for eating soup or a pig drinking water[9]

Related pages

• Place of articulation